DVD Release Date: June 7, 2005

Cast: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Christina Milian, Steven Tyler, The Rock, Vince Vaughn, André 3000, Cedric the Entertainer, Danny DeVito, James Gandolfini, Harvey Keitel, Debi Mazar

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By Sean Chavel

Be Cool is set against the raging backstage war of the music industry, with former shylock Chili Palmer (John Travolta) hustling his way into the business. This is the unofficial sequel to the 1995 hit Get Shorty, which was set against the movie industry.

Truth be told, Be Cool had some of the year’s most discouraging reviews from the majority of the nation’s critics. I’m perfectly proud to go on the record by saying that I liked this movie very much, although I won’t disregard its flaws. If anything, they’re minor flaws that aren’t even worth talking about. In a modern film world that is constantly being fueled by special effects and crude gimmicks, Be Cool is particularly refreshing that its a showcase of actors. Since most of today’s movies are being lobotomized by superfluous explosion junk and senseless gunplay, Be Cool is an entertainment that should be embraced not lambasted.

On the rottentomatoes.com grading scale, Be Cool received only a 30% approval rating. What was it that really made critics at large dislike about this movie? I get the criticisms that the plot is kind of unstructured, circular and redundant. But my feeling is that Be Cool is really going back to the types of entertainments Hollywood used to spool out in the 1940’s: when actors got to show off their personal styles while the plot the cast inhabited was insignificant in comparison. I have a feeling that if a movie like Be Cool had been released in 1945, it would be considered to be some kind of classic today for its rich gallery of performances and snazzy sense of humor. (Critics have bent themselves over backwards for ancient crap from that period as it is. I love old movies, though, but I love the good ones. And I love the fact that this flick is in the best of the tradition of old Hollywood). Today, any movie that runs its plot in low gear is considered some kind of turkey. As far as I know, any of the regular people I’ve talked to that only get out to see a few movies a year, told me that they liked Be Cool for the same reasons that I liked it.

The large cast, a strong compilation of Hollywood’s coolest and funniest actors, gets a chance to strut their stuff. It is appropriately fitting, and warranted, that Travolta captures the essence of smooth as Chili Palmer in Be Cool. It’s one of Travolta’s best characters in his career, and it would be worth seeing him reprise this character one more time in the future. But the entire cast – including Uma Thurman, Vince Vaughn, Cedric the Entertainer, Harvey Keitel, Christina Milian and The Rock – are able to find their stride, too.

And what a great reunion on the dance floor for Travolta and Thurman, whom once cut the rug famously together in Pulp Fiction. The Black-Eyed Peas have a walk-on appearance in the movie in which they perform a rap remix of a ’60’s Jaobim song called Sexy, and Travolta and Thurman make a memorable and cool highlight out of it. There’s something sexy, flirtatious and en vogue about Travolta and Thurman in this number. It’s cool without straining to be cool which is possibly the statement that best defines Travolta and the movie itself.

But the supporting cast is to die for. It’s a surprise really, considering that he is a former WWF star who has made a few mediocre action movies, but The Rock is a stand-out. As a bodyguard with an effeminate underside, The Rock elicits some of the biggest laughs in the movie such as his moment at a tacky wholesale clothing store called Boot Barn, and he is ecstatically pleased with his own bad taste. Vaughn is an outrageously overblown caricature as The Rock’s boss, but it’s a hip and confidence performance as Raji, a white gangster who thinks and acts like a black pimp. Cedric the Entertainer, on the other hand, plays a badass gangster with believable heft. Keitel is a red leather jacket tough guy and record producer that terminates his competition through corrupt means.

A mob war breaks out when Travolta casually steals rising star Linda Moon from his rivals’ proprietorship without legitimately buying out her contract (Moon is played by dazzling young pop star Christina Milian). Opposing gangster worlds inevitably collide. Plot aside, it’s a number of terrific moments that make Be Cool a hoot. Just about everyone involved with this movie is running on enthusiasm and joy in their performances, whether its doing riffs on their movie personalities (very old Hollywood) or by doing over-the-top characterizations with some funk in them in this backstage music industry comedy.

The DVD packs in the extras but they’re kind of overstuffed. Most critics might have found the film itself overstuffed with too many characters and too many impertinent scenes, but in this case, I find the extras are in violation of this principle. The “Be Cool, Very Cool” documentary is just sound-bite stuff. There are a few interesting footnotes, such as when author Elmore Leonard had originally conceived that the sequel to Get Shorty would take place in the fashion industry. And it’s cool how much the supporting cast has affection for Travolta and for his character Chili. But there’s too much reiteration of the plot. Sometimes these behind-the-scenes documentaries have too much slack editing as the case here.

There are numerous featurettes dedicated to each of the supporting characters. Fans of the movie might like this, but some of the material is just variants to what is seen in the previous feature documentary. I wish the featurette on “John and Uma’s dance sequence” was better, but it’s enjoyable enough to play it a second time if you have a thing for seeing Travolta and Thurman behind the scenes.

An outrageously silly music video featuring The Rock’s character Elliot Wilhelm is worth turning on, if only for a minute but it’s kind of embarrassing (as director F. Gary Gray observes) to keep it playing for the full length. Still, that cheesy look on The Rock’s face is side-splittingly funny.

Deleted scenes are forgettable (I had to watch them twice because I forgot what they were like the first time). Some deleted scenes are just continuation run-ons from what made the movie. But if you like cameos, you’ll catch former Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson and music entertainers Fred Durst and Patti La Belle on the cutting room floor. The most worthwhile deleted scenes are the ones featuring Keitel.

The gag reel should have been a hoot but at seven minutes it goes dry. Gag reels are usually great fun, especially when it’s a comedy. But the editing is slack. It’s worth a couple of laughs in the first minute or two. But after seven minutes its energy goes cold.

DVD bottom line: This flick isn’t one for the ages, but it sure is worth renting for one viewing. The extras are so-so, but it’s a spanking good presentation of a good movie.

Movie Score: B
Extras Score: B-
Overall DVD Score: B-

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